Brooks Laboratories, a leading pharmaceutical company, on July 14 entered into a new agreement with SteriScience Specialities (SteriScience) to make fresh investments in its subsidiary Brooks SteriScience (BSL) to expand manufacturing infrastructure and integrated capabilities for their carbapenem business.

Last year, Brooks had entered into a collaboration with SteriScience to carry out manufacturing, marketing and distribution of carbapenems for the global markets with an integrated infrastructure to manufacture both drug substances and drug products. As part of this collaboration, Brooks and SteriScience had setup BSL, a joint venture company engaged in the manufacturing of the carbapenem products which also housed the manufacturing facility at Vadodara, India.

SteriScience has already invested Rs. 400 million into BSL, and as per the new agreement signed, SteriScience will infuse an additional amount of Rs. 745 million, making a total investment commitment of Rs. 1,145 million in BSL. The new investments will be deployed to set up a dedicated Ertapenem formulation facility and integrate the APIs for all the four carbapenems under development.

Besides this, BSL will also set up front-end capabilities to market carbapenem products globally, including the US, Europe, Canada, Australia and India. BSL has already filed its first ANDA in addition to dossier submissions for 30+ European countries.

Going forward Brooks Steriscience (the current manufacturing JV) will be the only effective JV and SteriBrooks Penems (the Marketing JV), will be merged or dissolved as per legal advice in due course. All IPs / ANDAs / Dassiers will be owned by BSL across the world.

Atul Ranchal, Chairman of Brooks, commented, "Globally, Carbapenems are a USD 2 billion plus opportunity with limited players having dedicated capabilities to manufacture these products for the regulated markets. These fresh investments will bolster our global positioning and fast-track our ability to penetrate new markets with a significant competitive advantage driven by manufacturing, quality and supply assurance."

Rajesh Mahajan, Managing Director of Brooks, said, "We are very pleased with this deal and are excited to partner in this JV. We believe that this deal will further build upon our manufacturing strengths to continue our journey to deliver high quality, niche and specialized products globally."After completing new investments of Rs. 745 million, SteriScience will have 51% of BSL, while Brooks will have the remaining 49% ownership.

Shares of the company declined Rs 3.65, or 3.74%, to trade  at  Rs 94.  The total volume of shares traded  was  20,616 at  the BSE (3.29 p.m, Wednesday).